Eleanor Farjeon

“ O my honey-sweet singer!
(Once more THE SINGER plays and THE LADIES dance; but one by one they fall asleep to the drowsy music, and then THE SINGER steps into the ring and unlocks the Tower and kisses THE EMPEROR'S DAUGHTER. They have the end of the game to themselves.)
Lover, lover, thy my own true lover
Has opened a way for the Emperor's Daughter!
The dawn is the goal and the dark the cover
As we sail a thousand leagues over the water–
Lover, lover,
My dear lover,
O my own true lover! ”

“ IN Adversane in Sussex they still sing the song of The Spring-Green Lady; any fine evening, in the streets or in the meadows, you may come upon a band of children playing the old game that is their heritage, though few of them know its origin, or even that it had one. It is to them as the daisies in the grass and the stars in the sky. ”

“ But romance gathers round an old story like lichen on an old branch. And the story of Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard is so old now–some say a year old, some say even two. How can the children be expected to remember? ”